United States Assistance to Combat Transnational Crime

TestimonyWilliam R.
BrownfieldAssistant Secretary, Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement AffairsStatement before
the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign
Operations, and Related ProgramsWashington, DCMay 7,
2014

Chairwoman Granger, Ranking Member Lowey, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to discuss the evolving threat of transnational
organized crime and the efforts of the Bureau of
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) to
address it.

If I were sitting before you 35 years ago,
when the predecessor to INL—the Bureau of International
Narcotics Matters—was first established and you asked me
what transnational organized crime would look like in the
year 2014, I might have informed you of the violent and
hierarchical structure of the drug cartels and various
mafias and have foretold the success of U.S.
counternarcotics assistance to Colombia or the expansion of
our anti-drug trafficking efforts worldwide. I might have
accurately predicted the efforts of some cartels to move
across the Caribbean and destabilize communities across the
hemisphere. I might have surmised that, criminals being
opportunists, they would diversify and seek out not only new
markets but also new forms of criminality with minimal risk
and high rewards. And I would have
assumed—accurately—that certain elements of illicit
trafficking would remain the same regardless of the product
being trafficking: demand for the product, which produces a
market; a producer at the source; the need for a logistics
network to move the product across international borders, a
system to market or distribute the product at its
destination, and the need to convert the product into cash
or some other marketable commodity usable in the licit
market. But I could not have predicted the extent to which
globalization, coupled with dramatic improvements in
technology, would turn criminal organizations that had once
had only a domestic or regional impact into networked
enterprises posing threats to our and our partners interests
across the globe.

Today’s reality is that criminal and
illicit networks have expanded their tentacles to all parts
of the world, corrupting public and market-based
institutions alike. Their activities threaten not only the
interdependent commercial, transportation, and transactional
systems that facilitate free trade and the movement of
people throughout the global economy, but are jeopardizing
governance structures, economic development, security, and
supply chain integrity. Their penetration of state
institutions and financial and security sectors is
particularly concerning.

Recognizing the expanding size,
scope, and influence of transnational organized crime and
its impact on U.S. and international security and
governance, in July 2011, the White House released the
Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime. The
Strategy calls on all departments and agencies to "build,
balance, and integrate the tools of American power to combat
transnational organized crime…and urge our foreign
partners to do the same." The Strategy also calls for the
U.S. government and our international partners to work
together to combat transnational illicit networks, and take
that fight to the next level by breaking their corruptive
power, attacking their financial underpinnings, stripping
them of their illicit wealth, and severing their access to
the financial system.

With our diplomatic reach and
foreign assistance authorities, INL is strengthening partner
nation capacity to deal with these emerging transnational
criminal threats including by combating corruption and
targeting the illicit wealth of criminal entrepreneurs.
INL’s programs promote regional capacity-building to
mitigate the famous "balloon effect" we saw in South America
in the 1980s and 1990s, whereby criminal groups jump from
one country to another as pressure was applied. Through the
Central America Regional Security Initiative, the Merida
Initiative, the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, the
West Africa Cooperative Security Initiative, and other
programs you have supported, we are focused on coordinating
investigations, supporting prosecutions, and facilitating
the sharing of information across borders.

Many of the
approaches and methods we have refined over the past three
decades to reduce the harm of narcotics trafficking are
transferable to new and urgent threats – and I will focus
on one such threat today -- wildlife trafficking. It is
fueled by high demand for wildlife products, high profits --
an ounce of rhino horn is worth more than gold, cocaine, or
heroin in weight -- and low risk for detection or meaningful
punishment. Its impact on the planet’s natural resources
is as obvious as it is devastating – entire animal species
are at risk. But even setting aside the risk to wildlife,
the United States has cause to be seriously concerned about
this criminal enterprise: the corruption that it both
encourages and benefits from undermines good governance, the
rule of law, and citizens’ confidence in their government
institutions; the high tech weaponry and aggressive tactics
used by poachers and the syndicates and corrupt officials
that support them threaten civilian populations; the crime
creates and exacerbates border insecurity; wildlife
trafficking can weaken financial stability and economic
growth, particularly in countries for which tourism is a
major revenue source; and we have seen some evidence of
involvement by terrorist entities and armed groups.

For
these reasons, we need to address wildlife trafficking not
only as a conservation issue but also a national security
issue. The President issued an Executive Order calling for a
whole of government response to combat wildlife trafficking
on July 1, 2013 and on February, 11, 2014, the White House
released a National Strategy for Combating Wildlife
Trafficking. The Strategy calls on agencies and departments
to strengthen domestic and global enforcement, reduce demand
for illegal wildlife products, and build international
cooperation and public-private partnerships.

INL is
playing a significant programmatic and diplomatic role in
implementing the National Strategy. For over a decade, we
have provided wildlife investigative training delivered by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of our
International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) program. Within
the last year, with strong support of this Committee and
this Congress, we have begun to greatly expand our
assistance, drawing on our experience in addressing other
forms of transnational criminal activity. We have organized
our work abroad around four key areas that support the
enforcement and international cooperation goals of the
National Strategy.

First, we will strengthen legislative
frameworks to make wildlife trafficking a serious crime with
strong penalties to give investigators and prosecutors the
legal tools they need to put the traffickers behind
bars.

Second, we will improve law enforcement and
investigative capabilities -- including intelligence,
evidence collection and analysis, investigative skills and
methods, and collaboration across agencies and governments
– to promote intelligence-led investigations and
operations that strive not simply to pick up individual
poachers but rather to better understand and begin to
dismantle the organizations for which they work.

Third, we
will build prosecutorial and judicial capacities. As we have
learned, rangers and police will not continue to pick up the
bad guys if they believe prosecutors or judges will just let
them go so, as we improve legislative frameworks and offer
up new tools, we need to ensure prosecutors and judges know
how to use those tools effectively and creatively.

And
fourth, we will enhance cross-border law enforcement
cooperation, particularly by working with the regional
Wildlife Enforcement Networks (WENs). There is much that we
do not know about how wildlife trafficking organizations
operate – but we do know that illegal wildlife products
often make their way through multiple transit points as they
move from supply – or "range" – states to demand
markets. So we need to build alliances and processes across
borders for sharing information and intelligence and
collaborating on operations.

Our work in these areas will
be done on a bilateral basis. A portion of our overall
assistance is dedicated towards our programming in Kenya ($3
million in FY13) and South Africa ($3M in FY 2013);
regionally in Africa ($4 million in FY 2013) and Asia ($1.45
million in FY 2012); and globally ($4.3 million in FY 2012)
through organizations including INTERPOL, the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the World Customs
Organizations, who are part of the International Consortium
for Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC). Using $15 million in
FY 2014 funds, we will expand efforts begun or piloted using
prior year resources, such as training for customs officers
at ports of entry, prosecutorial training, and joint
capacity building-operational exercises across
continents.

INL is also approaching the wildlife
trafficking problem in new ways. We are using new tools such
as the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, which
Congress, with your support, authorized in 2013. In November
2013, Secretary Kerry announced the first reward offer under
the program of up to $1 million for information leading to
the dismantling of the Xaysavang Network. The Xaysavang
Network, based in Laos and operating across Africa and Asia,
facilitates the illegal trade of endangered elephants,
rhinos, and other species. This reward offer provides us
with an additional tool to dismantle wildlife trafficking
networks and bring its leaders and members to justice.

We
are also using our diplomatic tools to build an
international consensus around the importance of dismantling
wildlife trafficking networks. For example, at the UN Crime
Commission in April 2013, the United States introduced a
successful joint resolution with Peru encouraging
governments around the world to treat wildlife trafficking
as a "serious crime" pursuant to the U.N. Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime. Making it a serious crime
unlocks new opportunities for international law enforcement
cooperation, provided under the Convention, including mutual
legal assistance, asset seizure and forfeiture, extradition,
and other tools to hold criminals accountable for wildlife
crime. The U.N. Economic and Social Council adopted the
resolution in July 2013, further elevating wildlife
trafficking as a major concern for the United Nations. These
measures provide the mandate that we need, as members of a
larger body of concerned nations, to harness our collective
capabilities to learn more about these trafficking networks,
share information, and collaborate on plans and programs
that will undermine them.

The resolution was one of
several early successes to which we can point. Another is a
month-long global law enforcement cooperative effort that we
helped to support in February known as "Cobra II."
Participants from 28 countries, including representatives
from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department
of Justice, executed a global operation to combat wildlife
trafficking and poaching that resulted in more than 400
arrests and 350 major seizures of wildlife and wildlife
products across Africa and Asia and the U.S.

Although we
have more to learn about the links that exist between
wildlife trafficking organizations and other transnational
criminal groups, we do know that wildlife traffickers do not
operate in a vacuum. Like any legal enterprise that seeks to
diversify its portfolio, criminal organizations tend to use
the same routes and shipping methods as smugglers of
weapons, drugs, and counterfeits. They bribe the same
customs officials. They deploy poachers in the same restive
regions where terrorists and other criminals may sow
instability and conflict and exploit weak institutions and
porous borders. Money and corruption are common denominators
of all forms of transnational organized crime, and wildlife
trafficking is no exception.

Corruption greases the wheels
of illicit trade in everything from counterfeits to ivory.
In the Sahel-Sahara region of Africa, for example, collusion
between smugglers and state officials has eroded state
authority and created lucrative funding channels for
terrorists, militias, and criminal groups. INL is looking at
ways to link up our anti-corruption and unit vetting
programs used effectively in narcotics-producing regions, to
support willing governments afflicted by illicit wildlife
trade.

Following the money is equally important. All
illicit criminal networks need money to finance their
activities and as illicit funds move through the
international financial system, they can be detected and
monitored. In addition to exercising leadership within the
Financial Action Task Force (FATF), we are promoting and
applying tools like asset recovery and forfeiture to combat
transnational organized crime and money laundering. Through
the FATF style regional body for Eastern and Southern
Africa, we are working with international partners to
uncover and counter money laundering and other illicit
financial flows related to wildlife trafficking. When it is
finished, our capacity building projects will address the
gaps identified.

Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Lowey,
and distinguished Members, there is no doubt that
transnational organized crime presents a growing and
profound threat to international security. Illicit networks
undercut the ability of law enforcement to protect citizens,
deprive the state of vital revenues, promote corruption, and
both thrive on and contribute to bad governance. But as
organized crime has evolved and diversified, so has INL. Our
programs are both tailored to specific threats, such as
wildlife trafficking, and cross-cutting, to target the
common facilitators of all types of crime.

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